It has come to my attention lately that several individuals I know don’t keep a daily schedule. In many cases these individuals are business owners or are contractors. I want to take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of a schedule.

My guess is if you are not keeping a schedule it is for one of two reasons. 1. You think having a schedule means you are limiting yourself, but I promise you the opposite is true. 2. You simply aren’t sure of the best way to keep a schedule. I am not going to tell you that keeping a schedule is easy. In fact, not everything I have in my schedule is always completed. I have my moments when I just don’t feel like doing what I set out to do.  However it does remind me that I have a goal and that I have to bump it forward to another day. Your schedule is not only a means to planning today, it is also a means to planning tomorrow, the rest of the week, and the upcoming month. Without a schedule you are simply floating through your days, weeks, months and taking on whatever comes. Not to mention you are also relying on your memory, which I do NOT recommend.

So if there is one thing I want you to take away from this entry it’s this… buy a day planner NOW. Or if you are computer savvy use Outlook, iCal, or Lotus Notes. Use your calendar to write down everything you are going to do tomorrow. And I mean everything, phone calls, errands, meetings, anything that will take you more than 10 minutes.  There is no right way or wrong way and you don’t have to do everything you write in your schedule. I am willing to bet, however, that you will be more likely to get things done simply because you wrote it in your calendar.